Tony DeyalWHY DOES Frosty live in the middle of the ocean? Because snow-man is an island. I realised how true that is as I braved the Christmas traffic to head into Port-of-Spain, wishing I had a sleigh, Olive and all. Who is Olive? The 10th reindeer. Xmasologists say that the clue to the identity of the 10th reindeer is buried in the song, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in the lines, 'Olive the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names.'
Around this time of year I am very conscious of what the same xmasologists call the three stages of man. First, you believe in Santa Claus. In the second stage, you don't believe in Santa Claus. The third stage is when you become Santa Claus. Now, I have discovered a fourth stage. It is when you feel like Santa Claus walking backwards. The major symptom of this stage is that you say, "Oh, oh, oh" instead of "Ho, ho, ho." In my case the "Oh, oh, oh" is occasioned by the murder rate in Trinidad which has broken all records and many families. While Santa is on a sleigh ride, Trinidad seems to be on a slay ride. Long ago the only thing that December had that the other months didn't have was a 'D'. Now the 'D' stands for the death rate. The escalation in murders this Christmas is enough to give anyone Claustrophobia. It is as if the spirit of Christmas has gone out of Santa Claus and he has taken a rest, becoming Santa Pause.
I was indeed feeling claustrophobic shut in my car on the highway, doors locked, alert for carjackers and drunk drivers. I was on the way to the funeral of a family friend, Merle, who had died of cancer. She and her husband, Dr. Lloyd Webb, a colleague from my days with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), had been among the few friends who supported us when we were going through rough times in Trinidad. I had sneaked a look at the newspapers and was even more depressed. A young accounting clerk of East-Indian descent from the Express newspaper had taken her own life. What made the tragedy even more unbearable was a claim that it was over her love for a young man of African descent and her family's objection and resistance to the relationship.
It was ironic that Merle and Lloyd faced a similar situation more than 32 years ago when they met. They got married in 1970, the year of the Black Power Revolution in Trinidad and Tobago. Their marriage was blessed with love and four children, one of whom, Lyndon, is a close friend of my son George. They treat him like a member of their own family. Merle was almost maternal in the way she treated and counselled my wife Indranie.
The two deaths forced me to reflect on my own circumstances. My surname should have been Adam since my family represents a mix of the human race including black, white and brown, Hindus, Muslims and Christians. My Uncle Partap had married his childhood sweetheart Christina, and their first child Clint is my godson. I attended Anglican elementary schools and a Catholic secondary school. I went to school in rural Carapichaima, with its sugar cane fields that brought my ancestors from India, and then Port-of-Spain in a rural slum area, close to the killing fields of Laventille, named of all things 'Picadilly,' and in those days populated by many illegal immigrants from Grenada and St. Vincent. Later we went to live in Siparia on one border of a place called 'Cassava Alley' and then later aptly named 'Peyton Place' after the scandalous Grace Metalious novel. I have lived in Canada, the United States and Barbados. I consider myself first a Caribbean person, then a Trinidadian. I am not an Indo-Trinidadian. There is no such thing in my vocabulary. I am a practising Hindu and that is important to me. However, it is a philosophy, a way-of-life for my family of four, and not a religion in the sense of a church-based ritual or affiliation to a religious organisation like the Maha Sabha.
When my son George was six, I became Public Relations Officer of the national sugar company, Caroni Ltd., and we moved to Brechin Castle in Couva from the suburb of Curepe. He went to a school that the company operates on the residential compound on which we lived. Most of the children at the school were of East Indian descent. One of the other children, or it might even have been the teacher, informed George that he, George, was Indian. George was mystified and declared vehemently, "I am not an Indian. I don't have no feather." Twenty-one years later, my son's four-year old son Zubin faced the same predicament, someone having told him that he is Indian. He said bluntly, "Don't be silly. I am not an Indian. I am a Barbadian." His sister Jasmine supported him declaring, "I am Barbadian too."
It is not that we were unconscious of our racial differences when we were growing up. I learned to fight at Picadilly E.C. because of the 'tapping' or clouts on the head from the bigger boys. I think, however, they would have done that to any newcomer. My problems were not racial so much as cultural. In fact, one of the things I still remember is based on the fact that in Carapichaima the family members only played cricket. Even among adults, football was not played at the competitive level. Picadilly was a football school and we were playing a match. My classmates on the team invited me to come with them. They encouraged me to tell the teacher that I was 'running lines' (being one of the officials or a 'linesman'). Since I had no idea what that was and was too ashamed to say so, I made an excuse about having to go home early.
Christmas is a celebration all Trinidadians share, regardless of race, colour or religion. I walked into the Church of the Nazarene in St. James, Port-of-Spain, feeling as lost as a chicken at the North Pole. This Christmas had started badly and was getting worse. I have no job and had no hope. The music started and I was made to realise that we were celebrating the life of Merle rather than mourning her death. Then the message of the Nazarene burst forth as bright as the star that blazed over Bethlehem and set me singing with the congregation, "Joy to the world!"
Job or no job, it is the task of those of us who remain to make the world a better place. It is the lesson of the love of Merle and Lloyd and their family of four. As I left the church, the salt tears causing my eyes to burn, yet my heart lighter for the love that I shared with a church full of strangers, I clutched Indranie to me and held my son George who has continued to live his life without feathers.
Tony Deyal was last seen saying it is the thought that counts, not the gift, and people should start thinking bigger.
